[ExI] IQ and beauty

John Clark johnkclark at gmail.com
Sat Oct 3 17:33:42 UTC 2015


Why hasn't Evolution insured that everybody is beautiful? I can think of 2
reasons and they both involve sex:

1) Traits that we find attractive in one sex we may think ugly or grotesque
in another, so a gene that enhances that trait will not dominate the gene
pool.

2) Even if both sexes find a trait attractive the natural environment may
not agree; I'm thinking of the tail of a peacock which is a hindrance at
flight and a hindrance at everything except at finding a satisfactory mate.
If the tail gets much larger or more beautiful the bird will probably go
extinct in a blaze of gorgeousity.

*    "Oh bliss! Bliss and heaven! Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeousity
made flesh. It was like a bird of rarest-spun heaven metal or like silvery
wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now."  Alex- A Clockwork
Orange   *

 John K Clark
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